

Lll 



TlBR/UlY OF CONGRESS 

00013621550 ^ 



^y 



E 420 
.L71 

^^''^ ' ICHUSETTS LIBERTY COM 

AND 

SPEECH OP HON. JOHN P. 

TOGETHER WITH HIS 

Letter AcceptiRg Ms Nomination for the 
Our State Gonventioii. 

This important anniversary ha? come and 

gone. And we do but echo the thoughts of 

every fnend who attended, in saying that it wa. 

by far the most animating and hopeful rneetin- 

of the kind that the Liberty party has ever heM 

m Massachusetts. The number in attendance 

was unusually large, filling the Tremont Temple 

as full as an ordinary congregation all day 

And of these, very many were new faces now 
lor the first time met to co-operate politically 
^v^th the friends of emancipation. Ail parts of 
the State were more fully represented than usual. 
Ihe complete harmony of feelings and views 
was highly gratifying. The whole multitude 
were of one heart and of one mind. All seemed 
to leel sure that the Liberty party is in the ri-^ht 
track, and that we have nothing to do but to°go 
ahead. All the details of business were done 
up With ease and promptness. A new and lar 



one hundred of our staunchcst mm ;,. .11 ,,.,», ""^1 charity in all other iio,nt« nf ^.•ffi,,^!: I ' 



, -".L-i aiding ,»00U 

one hundred of our staunchcst men, in all part, 
of the Commonwealth, who will be likely to 
give the campaign an effective impulse this year 
The Convention met in the Tremont Temple 
and was called to order at 10 o'clock on We<!- 
r.esday, Jan. 26. by Dr. Caleb Svv..x, of Easton 
who read the call of the Convention. 

The following names were reported by the 
committee as officers of the convention, and 
they were unanimously chosen .— 

President, Hon. Appleto.n Kowe, of Wey- 
mouth ; Vice Presidents, Hon. James G. Carter 
of Lancaster, Hon. Wm. Jackson, of Newton' 
Lorenzo Rice, Esq., of North Adams, Dr Lem- 
uel Gott, of Rockport, Dr. M. R. Randall of 
Rehohoth, Moses Ereck, Esq., of Northampton 
Asaph Rice, Esq., of Northboro'; Secretaries, 
Dr Wm.. F. Channing, J. W. Alden, John O 
VVhntier, H. M. Chamberlain, Esq. 



fiin' ^^ °* '" ''^'y''' "°^ ^° <iestroyany 
thing good HI any of them, but to removi the 
grand disturber which prevents all of ?hem 
cortry.'"'"^ "^ ^"^' P«™-'»'«'^t good to the 
3. Resolved, That the Liberty Party nomi- 
nated J0H.P.H..1.K as their candidate for the 
Presidency, as an honest and competent man 
occupying their ground, resolved to labor ?or' 
their objects kno.vn to be whole and true- 
hear ed in whatever he undertakes, and capable 
01 filimg with honor the highest s ation, and of 
administering the Constitution as President of 
this Republic, so as to secure the blessino-s of 
Liberty to all the inhabitants thereof. ° 

J Resolved That we exult in the manly 
course pursued by Mr. Hale in the discharge df 
his official duties, and thank God for havin- 
raised us up the man for the hour :-whose fear" 
less independence challenges the respect of the 
slaveholders, as his elevated views of politic.^? 
morality demand the homage of eve?y good 

5 Resolved, That the Buffalo Convention in 
settling the policy of the Liberty Party on the 



The convention on the importance of Jhe objects 
ioT Which they were assembled. 

Prayer was offered byjlev. Phineas Crandall. 

RESOLUTIONS. 

I. Resolved, That the Liberty Party was or 
ganized for the purpose of political action riin t 
blavery, as the greatest political evi" o?the 
country, on the principle, that the overthrow of 
Slavery is the most urgent political duty 

2 Resolved Th^t the party has ever remained 
Tue to its original profes-sion"^ as a union of ami 



and chanty in all other points of difference h-s 
also settled its destiny, as an organization cor" 
petent to its object, and true to its profession ■ 
and we again invite al! anti-slavery men wV.o 
arc wilhng to forego their political preferences 
on minor issues until Slavery is overthrown 7o 
join with us_ on the only platform of united ac- 
non which IS broad enough and strong enough 
lO secure its object. ^ 

6. Resolved, That after we had been for sev- 
eral years trying to open the eyes of the peonle 
to the danger 01 the annexation of Texas, and 
he oracles of the other parties, down to the 
latest moment, refused to take any stand against 
It— It is a foul calumny, by whomsoever uttered 
to atcempt to throw upon the Liberty Party the 
Odium of annexation. Why, if the whig party 
-vere opposed to annexation, did they not take a 
tirm and consistent stand, with us, against it)- 
and what has become of their boastful and va- 
liant promises to undo, by a "joint Resolutio£" 
OJ Congress, what a joint Resolution was aboilt 
to consummate. ^ 

V. Resolved, That while we cordially app^ffwe 



The president, o„ ,.Ui„, .he chair, a.dresse,, and„J„7. ttV.r,tXnh7p'°o1i°i'-IriSt 
e convention on the imnortan^A «f tk. „u,- ... offered bv Mr w.uL. „„., __ ?"° °".i.i«?«f/ 



offered by Mr. Wilmot, and are determin^toJo 
apply II with zeal and energy to all terriKf^ay 
hereafter brought under the jurisdictioniofiotae 
Ignited States, howsoever and from whomsotwJr 
acquired, we cannot fail to understand, anrfawe 
owe It to ourselves and the country to proqlaim 
that It does not meet the crisis to vyhichlthe 
country IS brought by the overshadow?M^5- 
ence and encroachments of Slavery as, if^Sfy 
exists ; and it does not, of itself, aff^Jdl^ffi 
broad enough and permanent enouMi WtS. 
cessful po itical action against thft |AS' 



2 






8. iicxoZrcd, That the true interests and honor 
of the country alike demand that our armies 
should be unconditionally and immediately %vith- 
drawn from Mexico, by " the shortest and cheap- 
est route."' 

9. Rasolved, That this country owes an atone- 
jrnent to the civilized world for its violation of 
the laws of nations, and its betrayal of the pause of 
republicanism and free principles, by unsheath- 
ing the sword for purposes of conquest and ag- 
f^resaive war in its present cowardly assault upon 
Mexico. 

10. Resolved, That we view with abhorrence 
alilce the unblushing support of the war by the 
democratic party, and the verbal denunciations, 
but ready voting of supplies by the whig party. 

11. Resolved, That the only question now at 
is.sue between the whig and democratic parties 
is, not whether the war shall be carried on until 
.Mexico is conquered, but whether it shall be 
fought out under the lead of Whigs or Demo- 
crats. 

12. Resolved, That, although, as earnest and 
practical men, in view of the present crisis — the 
Mexican war — the impending danger of new ac- 
cession of slave territory, and the urgent duties 
imposed by the approaching Presidential contest, 
we have no time to waste in discussing the nice 
points of the Constitution, which, for the pres- 
ent, is wholly unavailable for freedom, and held 
in duress by slavery, it being our first duty to 
emancipate that instrument, and take the ark of 
our political covenant out of the hands of the 
Philistines ; yet, we can all agree : 

First, That the Constitution imposes no obli- 
j^ation upon the people to sustain or countenance 
slavery, in any case whatever, and 

Secondly, That Government has no power to 
create, extend, or foster domestic slavery, and 
that all acts on its part having this object in 
view are manifest usurpations. 

13. Resolved, That it is the duty of all who 
love their country and their race, to unite in a 
<fetermined effort to rescue the Constitution from 
the guardianship of those who have perverted 
its language, and violated its spirit, and made it 
a mere nose-of-wax in their hands, to be mould- 
ed into such shapes as suit the interests and de- 
signs of the slave power, and to place it in the 
keeping of men who will interpret its provisions 
in the light of Truth and Liberty, and call into 
exercise all its powers for the promotion and ex- 
tension of freedom, and the consequent limita- 
tion and eradication of slavery. 

14. Resolved, That the foundation principle of 
the Liberty party is the equality and brotherhood 
of the human race — the right of all to freedom, 
and the pursuit of happiness, and that the con- 
sistent carrying out of this principle, in obe- 
dience to the Gospel injunction of doing unto 
others as we would others should do unto us, in 
all the relations of life, is the dictate alike of 
duty and expediency, that our good may not be 
€vil spoken of, and our sincerity, in arraying 
ourselves as a political party against the grossest 
form of oppression, may be placed beyond sus- 
picion. 

15. Resolved, That the Press is essential to the 
progress and permanency of the cause of the 
slave in the public mind, and that the Emanci- 
lATOR ought to be taken, especially during the 
toming year, bj' at least five thousand Liberty 
men in Massachusetts ; and the members of this 
Convention pledge themselves to endeavor to ex- 
t«nd its circulation. 

APPLETON HOWE, President 



Mr. Hale's Speech 

Before the Massachuseiis Liberty Convention. 

The report of this able and eloquent Speech 
which follows, is taken mainly from the Whig, 
corrected and amended by a comparison with 
the more full report of Dr. Stone, in the Chro- 
notype. 

My Friends and Fei>low Citizens, Lahiep 
AND Gentlemen : — Thanking you for the cordial 
and enthusiastic greeting with which you have 
received me, though I have not the vanity to at- 
tribute it to any thing personal to myself, but 
rather to the cause with which my humble 
name has been somewhat identified, I proceed 
this evening in obedience to your request, to ofl'er 
you some suggestions with reference to a sub- 
ject which should be of engrossing and thrilling 
interest to every citizen of the Commonwealth , 
and I shall commence without apology and with- 
out preface. 

It has always struck my mind that when a 
physical and moral evil is to be encountered, 
our first inquiry should be into the character and 
cause of the evil. 

Go into any of the streets, and lanes, and by- 
places of this metropolis, or of any of the large 
cities and towns of this country, and you will 
find in all those places the miserable victims of 
intemperance. Physical, mental, and moral de- 
cay are in full operation upon them ; disease in 
every form to which the human' constitution is 
subject, has seized upon them ; and they are 
walking about, a living death ; but they do not 
know what is the matter with them. They con- 
tinue daily to pour down drafts of liquid fire, re- 
ducing their minds to idiocy and their bodies to 
putrefaction, and still they are inquiring, what 
is the matter? They have coughs and cold.s, 
fevers and agues, but they are most sadly at a 
loss to know the cause of it. 

It has struck me that the situation of the Uni- 
ted States at the present moment is not entirely 
unlike that condition. Our resources and our . 
credit are being exhausted, our fair fame 
withered, our hopes blasted, and the keenest vi- 
sion cannot discern in the distant future the day 
star of hope, and yet our wisest statesmen are 
looking hither and thither to know what is the 
cause of it. 

We are engaged in a war, a war that brands 
the nation as savage, and the age as barbarou.«, 
and we don't know how we got there. We don't 
kno;v who is responsible for it. Says one, O, 
yes, I know, it was the march of Gen. Taylor 
from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande. That'a 
the cause of it. Another says, No, it was 
the Mexican debts. O no, says a third, it 
was because the Administration wanted to sup- 
plant one General in Mexico, and put in anoth- 
er. And so they go through the whole round 



of secondary causes, but doa'l know what aila 
us. There is not a child of ordinary understand- 
ing that does not know the cause. You cannot 
go into a cliurch and hear a sermon without 
hearing it. You cannot look your neighbor in 
the face, — you cannot look to the right or the 
left but what you see it stamped in horrid linea- 
ments. — Every body knows it, but nobody dares 
to say so. 

Now, my friends, I propose this evening to 
treat this subject. I propose to suggest to you 
my own opinions upon this subject, and to do it 
plainly. And when 1 say that, you will not ac- 
cuse me of any design to flatter you. I know 
nothing flattering to say to you upon this bub- 
ject. I do not come here this evening with any- 
thing new. I have addressed a great many pub- 
lic assemblies in this State and in many other 
States, and it would be strange if there was any- 
thing new for me to say. The condition of the 
country is just the same. There is the same 
great disturbing element, the same great causes 
in operation, and the same effects developed ; 
and how can any one speaking truthfully, say 
anything new upon the subject. No, my friends, 
the subjects are old and familiar, though not so 
old as they will be, nor so familiar as I wish 
they were. 

Let me, in the first place, say a word or two 
on some of the difficulties which lie in the way 
of a right discernment of the subject ; and one 
difficulty seems to me to lie here. We are un- 
willing to look at the question as individuals. 
We are unwilling to see and acknowledge, that 
to every individual there is an individual respon- 
sibility, but we are endeavoring to throw oiftlie 
responsibility upon somebody else. We are 
looking at the subject in every light except that 
of individual duty. 

One of the most palpable and obvious ways in 
which this is done, is to throw it upon the Gov- 
ernment ; and that seems to be all-sufficient. 
AVhen a man has said that he has found the 
cause, that the Government have done so and so, 
be thinks no doubt that he has conve3'ed an idea 
by the words he has uttered. Let me ask such 
a man if he ever saw that Government .' Do you 
know where the government lives ? Oh yes, 
nays one, it is at Washington. No, my friends, 
I have been to Washington, and you might 
search there for the government with as little 
r!r«ct as Diogenes searched with a candle at 
noonday for an honest man. The government 
is not there. You will meet some gentlemen 
there who will tell you they are far from being 
the government. They are only the humble 
servants of the people, and would be shocked 
with the idea of being the government. And 
they are right — they are not the government. 

Where is it then ? Why, my friends, it is here. 
It is in the faces of the intelligent community 
before me, and around me, aod I have never 



seen, nor do I expect to see, a more living em- 
bodiment of the government of the United States, 
than I now see before me. W^hen you want to 
look at the responsible authors of the calami- 
ties of the United States, they are here. The 
government of every country is exactly what 
the popular sentiment makes it ; it is just exact- 
ly as good as the people, and no better ; just ex- 
actly as bad, and no worse ; it is the consent, 
the will, the purpose of the people that giv« 
force, vitality and energy to the action of the 
government ; and the idea that under a popular 
and elective system of government there are re- 
sponsibilities pertaining to the government sepa- 
rate from those pertaining to the people, is, to 
say the very least of it, ridiculous and absurd. 

The responsibility lies with the people, and 
the Government do just exactly what the peo- 
ple want them to do. Have they sent their ar- 
mies to Mexico? Have they bombarded her 
cities, and when the defenceless women and 
children, despairing of help from any earthly 
arm, thronged the temples of the Most High, 
have they sent their Christian bomb shells into 
those temples, painting their walls with the 
blood and brains of women and children ? Who 
has done it ? — Why, my friends, you have done 
it, your agents have done it, and they have done 
it because the popular taste would not be satis- 
fied with any thing short of a picture with such 
living colors. When the time comes when the 
popular sentiment shall be so renovated that 
your taste will not sustain this, then, and not 
till then, will these public exhibitions cease. 

I think I heard a solitary voice say that this 
responsibility belonged to Mr. Polk. Well, I 
have heard it said elsewhere. I have heard 
within the last two months from my seat in 
Congress, great and venerable statesmen in the 
American Senate say it, and attempt so to vote 
as to throw the responsibility upon the President. 
Why, my friends, it is utterly impossible. There 
is a degree of responsibility which belongs to 
every man ; for the right discharge of his dutic's 
he is accountable, and it is idle to attempt to 
throw it anywhere else. 

One of the great difficulties lying in the way 
is that we merge the responsibility belonging to 
the individual into the irresponsibility of party 
majorities. We remember that we are Whigs 
or Democrats, but forget that we are something 
higher, holier, than Whigs or Democrats, that 
we are immortal beings with responsibilities 
pertaining to us, individually, which we cannot 
put off. We forget that we are the common 
children of one Almighty Parent who makes men 
and women, but does not m.ake Whigs and De- 
mocrats. 

If, then, the responsibility belongs to "' 
pie, the people have a duty to perform, 
til we come up to the perception of th 
it is idle to talk ; because right action 



gin whore tlie rc-sponsibiiity rests, and the gov- 
ernment will be nothing more nor less than the 
popular will and sentin)ent. It is perfectly idle 
for us to quarrel with the index which we have 
ourselves put up. The remedy, then, is with 
the people. So it must begin, and so it will 
end, becanse when the people are right, the gov- 
ernment is right as a matter of course : and it 
seems to me that these are propositions too 
palpable to need further elucidation. Then, my 
friends, what have we got to do ? To inculcate 
right opinions, and right action will flow out of 
it. 

Allow me to say one word upon a most la- 
mentable error. We fancy that there is some- 
thing very potent in getting together, particular- 
ly in large numbers, and passing stringent reso- 
lutions. The most gratifying fact in the history 
of resolutions which I have seen has been this ; 
that when the State of New Hampshire in 1816, 
passed some pretty stringent Anti-slavery Reso- 
lutions, the Governors of South Carolina and 
Virginia sent them back to us. They don't send 
back Massachusetts Resolutions ; and why ? 
Because, it is perfectly understood when you 
pass them that they mean nothing. You passed 
resolutions against the Annexation of Texas, 
"Whig and Democrat, unanimously, in the strong- 
est terms in which language could shape them, 
and you sent them to AVashington. What effect 
did they have ? Just as much as if you had sent 
them last year's Almanac, and no more. Texas 
was annexed ; War with Mexico followed, and 
they sent for a Massachusetts Regiment to go 
and fight the War of Slavery. And they ^vent — 
and if they send for another, they will go, ac- 
companied with a resolution perhaps. 

But why did they send back the New Hamp- 
shire resolutions ? It was something new and 
strange, coming from New Hampshire ; they 
feared we were getting refractory, and wanted 
to apply the rod in season. And I hope they 
v/ill continue to send them back until we learn 
to throw a little more resolution into our resolu- 
tions. When we do that, they won't comeback. 
The resolutions passed in 1775, and sent across 
the waters to Great Britain, didn't come back. 
_ There was meaning in them, and they knew that 
the resolutions of to-day would be followed by 
the action of to-morrow. 

Allow me now to take up the question which 
I proposed to treat upon, — What produced this 
War? The answer must be anticipated by 
every body. It was slavery. " Another aboli- 
tion lecture," says some one. Perhaps so, but 
when we learn that slavery ut the present mo- 
ment is taxing the people beyond all former pre- 
cedent, when we know that we are spending 
this year nearly three times as much as was 
spent in the last war to maintain freedom upon 
the seas, in another war to maintain slavery 
upon the land, is it not time to speak out ? I 



know that there have been prophets upon the 
mountains that have foreseen the dark cloud 
and have sounded the alarm, but the people said, 
Not yet. The cloud has extended in dimen- 
sions, and settled in thick night upon us, and the 
i^Iarm has been again sounded, but the dull 
sleepers say, Not yet. And now the whole 
liorizon is overcast, and the tempest is about us ; 
the moral indignation of earth and^ the judg- 
ments of God come in thick succession upon us, 
but yet it is not time j " Not yet," they say. 
When will it be time ? Where is the moral 
guage to measure the length, breadth and depth 
of our degradation before it will be time for us 
to wake up ? I would like for these men to de- 
scend to the bottomless pit, and see if they can 
find any gauge to measure that depth to which 
we must sink before it will be time to wake up 
and arouse. 

You hear a great deal said at the North about 
dough-faced Representatives. You have got 
them, true enough, but what is the reason of it > 
It is because they have got a more dough-faced 
constituency at home. When the people are 
right upon this subject — when reformation 
begins in the right place, then, my friends, you 
will have a right spirit in the Representatives 
you send. Let me ask you, has there ever been 
a time in the history of New England, when a 
Representative could have gone and stood up 
faithfully, declared the truth upon this subject, 
and been sustained by his constituency ? Has 
there been a time when the church itself would 
have sustained such a man ? Then, in heaven's 
name, don't complain of your Representatives ; it 
is because the representative is the representative 
of the people, and is not the representative of 
something better than the people, that fault is 
Ibund with him. 

I come then to the elucidation of this ques- 
tion. And when I say that the present war in 
which we are engaged arises out of the express 
and avowed determination of the American 
Government to make the extension and per- 
petuation of Slavery one of the leading motives 
of action, I believe I say what is familiar to any 
one conversant with public affiiirs. It is a truth 
so palpable that I don't know but I owe you an 
apology for making an attempt to establish it 
here to-night. It is a truth which cannot be 
winked out of sight, written upon our official 
history, which will there remain in glaring 
characters as long as the archives of the Ameri- 
can Government stand among the records of 
time. 

I ascribe its origin to the Annexation of 
Texas ; we ought not to content ourselves with 
any secondary inquiries, and we cannot find its 
origin short of that. We may have different 
opinions upon the subject. Some may think 
that if matters had been managed with pru- 
dence, we might have avoided the war ; that 



Mexico was so weak and distracted that we 
might have presumed upon our power, and 
Mexico would have submitted while we acted 
the robber's part. But when we go back to the 
prime cause, there can be no mistake as to the 
character of the conquest in which we are en- 
gaged, and for the purposes for which it is car- 
ried on. I do not intend to weary you with 
reading, but the correspondence of our Govern- 
ment is written all over with it. Were a stran- 
ger to be obliged to take the correspondence of 
1843 and 1844, and to form an opinion of the 
United States Government and Constitution 
i'rom it, he could come to no other conclusion 
but that slavebreeding and slaveholding were 
the only interests worthy of the fostering care 
of the National Government. 

The Secretary of State, writing to Mr. Mur- 
phy, our Charge in Texas, on Jan. 16, 1844, 
says, speaking of slavery : 

" I will only add, that if Texas should not be 
attached to the United States, she cannot main- 
tain that institution ten years, and probably not 
half that time." 

There was the proposition. If we only let 
Texas alone ;' if we attend to our own business, 
slavery would die out, and liberty would suc- 
ceed in live years. That was the attitude in 
which we were placed. There was the Ameri- 
can nation, a republic, springing into existence 
with the glorious announcement that " All 
men are born equal," not content with the an- 
nouncement of it, but appealing to the God of 
Heaven to attest the fidelity with which they 
made it, and the integrity with which they 
would sustain it ; and ere that generation had 
entirely passed from the stage, we find it carry- 
ing on a crusade in foreign lands, and stretching 
out robber hands to take home the provinces of 
a sister republic, lest the boon of freedom should 
be enjoyed by their bondmen, and the wither- 
ing curse of slavery should die out of their 
midst. That is the position in which our gov- 
ernment placed us, and they have said this, in 
no equivocal terms, over and over again. 

The Secretary of State also declared that the 
establishment of a Government prohibiting the 
existence of slavery there, wonld be one of the 
greatest calamities which could befall the coun- 
try. Some of you may say that this does not 
belong to Massachusetts. '" It may be very 
good talk for your New Hampshire Locofocos, 
but you don't come it here." But the Govern- 
ment of the United States and the Executive 
have declared that that was the policy they fol- 
lowed ; that was the reason they laid down as 
influencing their conduct. And the whole coun- 
try followed, the whole resources of the coun- 
try have been pledged ; the arms, the men, the 
forces of the nation are being employed to-day 
to carry out these very principles and meas- 
ures. Your Massachusetts regiment has gone 



there to carry out these doctrines and to pre- 
vent the calamity of a free nation. Our Govern- 
ment pledged themselves that they would not 
allow it to succeed without the most strenuous 
efforts to prevent it ; and what efforts more stren- 
uous than sending men to fight the battles of 
slavery and paying their expenses ? My friends, 
it is a national policy ; and the whole nation are 
responsible for it. 

We are like passengers embarked aboard one 
common ship. If the voyage is prosperous, if 
the gales of heaven blow propitiously upon us, 
we all share in the prosperity and in the happi- 
ness. But if, on the other hand, storms and dis- 
asters overtake us, one ruin will involve us all 
together, and we cannot separate our lot, one 
from another. One welfare or one ruin is our 
lot ; and a common destiny is our inheritance. 

That these transactions might not be wanting 
in atrocity, all was done in the name of free- 
dom.— It was to extend the area of freedom, to 
extend our free institutions ; because we were a 
free and Christian people. Ay, and we are 
sending our missionaries abroad, and I suppose < 
you have in this city societies which ask that 
you will give of your abundance or your penury 
to send the gospel off to heathen lands— that 
have not got any free institutions. I would ask 
where they propose to send the missionaries? 
What place so lost and reprobate as to require 
such a gospel as ours ?— Have they found an is- 
land in the solitudes of the ocean, a mountain in 
the bosom of Asia, or a rock in the desert of 
Africa, inhabited by a nation or tribe so forget- 
ful of God, so lost to every high, and generous 
and honorable impulse of humanity, that they 
are stretching out their hands to extend the em- 
pire of chains and slavery ? If they have got 
such a place as that, give them something ; but 
see to it that you do not give them more than 
half of what you can spare. Take the rest, and 
send a home missionary to the seat of your na- 
tional government, to proclaim in the ears of 
your national rulers the first principles of that 
religion which is to send "deliverance to the cap- 
tive, and the opening of the prison doors to them 
that are bound." 

1 wonder how it would have sounded if the 
Governor of your Commonwealth, in his annual 
Thanksgiving proclamation, had called upon the 
good people of the State to come together, and 
when thanking God for the ingatherings of the 
harvest, to thank Him also that he had been 
pleased in His infinite mercy to make us, the 
people of Massachusetts, the humble instruments 
of His power in extending the benign influences 
of slavery over another nation. And yet, if the 
Administration is right, and if through our means 
the clanking chain of the slave, and the wail- 
ing of the bondsman are heard there, why shoi 
we not thank Heaven ? Why, my friends 
suggestion is almost too impious for though 



yet it is carrying oat the avowed policy of oar 
Government. 

Here, then, is the position in which we are 
placed. Here is a war confessedly prosecuted 
and carried on for this purpose. Look to the 
developments of the last few days. See the 
letter published by the Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs in the Senate, in 
which the Wilmot Proviso is opposed, because it 
will cause supplies for the prosecution of the war 
to be v/ithheld. What is it but saying that the 
moment the people of the United States are deter- 
mined that no more slave territory shall be an- 
nexed to the United States, you will hear no 
more call for supplies of men and money, that 
moment you have peace. 

Have the people of the free States no interest 
in this matter ? Do the citizens of Massachu- 



those that stood by his side, be held in es- 
teem. 

I am at a loss to know how a different rule has 
ever been established. If an administration has 
been guilty of minor flagrancy, and would wash 
themselves clean of the pollution, they have only 
to baptize the land in blood and they are clean. 
It seems to me that the condemnation of such u 
scale of morals cannot be too loud or too se- 
vere. It seem.s to me that the present is the 
time for it, and that Massachusetts is emphati- 
cally the place. Why. I wonder that Bunker 
Hill Monument, with all its ponderous weight, 
can keep the bones of our Revolutionary fathers 
quiet in their resting places while such senti- 
ments are uttered. 

This is still going on. More men and more 
money is the cry. I have been amused at see- 



setts owe nothing to themselves, to the fame of ing the attempts to throw the responsibility from 



better days, to the memory of your fathers, nor 
to the plighted faith you have written in your 
Constitution ? If they can see their national 
character prostrated, the national energies, 
wealth, and resources all pledged to such a pur- 
pose as this, and do not wake up, let me ask you 
what will do it ? What new purposes must 
thej' disclose to wake the dormant patriotism and 
sleeping energies of those who believe it is not 
quite time to arouse ? I confess that I do not 
know; I cannot see anything in the future darker 
than in the present which now envelopes us ; 
and if the measures now publicly avowed be not 
enough to rouse the people of the free States to 
a sense of their danger and degradation, I con- 
fess that I have not optics which will see deep 
enough into the pit of infamy to reach the point 
where they will wake up. 

I know that the doctrine prevails extensively 
that sets it down as treason to make inquiry be- 
cause we are engaged in a war. It is admitted, 
that in time of peace you may scrutinize with the 
greatest severity, and there is no fault to be 
found, but it is maintained that in time of war, 
a different rule of morals prevails. Then the 
voice of opposition should be })aralyzed, then 
there should be no voices but pa?ans of praise, 
no notes but shouts of hosannas. I do not so un- 
derstand our duty. I have not so read history : 
because I read that in the days when the coun- 
try from which our ancestors emanated, waged 
a war upon our fathers, the brightest and purest 



one party to the other. I have heard it serious- 
ly .stated, that if the Congress of the United 
States had only promptly voted all the volunteers 
who were wanted, we should have had peace in 
six weeks. And I could not help admiring the 
answer, — " Sir, have we not voted every man 
and every dollar that the President wanted ?"' 
And it turned out to be true that he had got 
every thing he had asked, and has been at work 
two years to •' conquer a peace," and has not 
conquered it yet, and now he calls for more 
men. — Were it not too serious for a joke, I 
m.ight illustrate it by an incident. I knew a 
fond father and a foolish son whom the father 
trusted with money and it ruined him. When 
the father was bewailing the result, the son said, 
"Sir, the only fault was that you didn't give me 
money enough. I had enough just to ruin me ; 
a little more would have made a gentleman of 
me." 

It is not necessary for me to state my policy, 
for I have stated it again and again. I believe 
the war to be wrong, totally wrong, wrong in 
its inception, wrong in its purpose, wrong in 
its object, wrong in its aim, all wrong, every- 
thing wrong. I am at a loss to conceive how 
patriotism or duty requires any man who be- 
lieves this war to be wrong in all its phases, to 
vote money to carry it on ; I am still more at a 
loss to know how any man can vote to furnish 
the means to the administration, and avoid the 
responsibility of carrying on a wrong and un- 



patriots of English history found the path of du- just war. To my mind it is as palpable as if I 



ty leading them to the denunciation of a war 
hostile to liberty, and those names will live, sa- 
cred and dear in the memory and hearts of pa- 
triots, as long as the love of liberty finds a rest- 
ing place in the human bosom. The names of 
those distinguished men who plead the cause of 
freedom and of justice, against the hand of pow- 



saw an assassin and should' give him a dagger, 
and should say, Mind, I throw the responsibility 
upon you. It is a principle of law, and good 
sense too, that in murder there are no accessa- 
ries before the fact. They are all principals, 
those that strike the blow, those that aid and 
abet, and those that furnish the meaiis ; before 



T in the British Parliamer;t, have not yet been the deed, all are principals, 

the yp as traitors to their country, or enemies I am aware that I shall be accused of fanati- 

upon 'y . j^nj £0 Jong as civil liberty shall cism. I know that it is said to be absurd to 

dvocate, so long shall Chatham, and attempt to apply Christian morals to national 



politics. I know it is said that when the Most 
High promulgated His command, "Thou shalt 
do no murder," Ha meant that you should not 
kill one man, but might kill a thousand ; that 
when he said. "Thou shalt not steal," He meant 
that you should not pick one man's pocket, but 
the command does not apply to robbing nations 
of their territory, or men of their manhood! 
Oh, no, this is a fanaticism of the worst kind. 

It is absurd and ridiculous, a narrow and con- 
tracted view of things, to undertake to meas- 
ure objects of national concern by such narrow 
and fanatical ideas as these ! I am willing to 
ho a fanatic upon this subject. I believe, my 
friends, that while the God of Justice sits on 
the throne of Eternity, it is no more safe for 
nations than for individuals to violate this law. 
I am willing to go further than this. 

I am willing to subject myself to all the odi- 
um and opprobrium of avowing before the 
American people, that I had rather take my 
lot with the French Atheists, and deny the ex- 
istence of a God and a hereafter, than to believe 
that there is a God that will permit our nation 
to pursue its present career and prosper. Un- 
less all history is a lie, unless the experience of 
the past is a delusion, and all prophecy but the 
insane wanderings of a diseased imagination, 
the end of our career is neither distant nor 
doubtful. We must stop ; we must retrace our 
steps, or else the end that is before us cannot be 
mistaken. It requires no very vivid imagina- 
tion to fancy that we can hear the ghosts of de- 
parted nations all crying out to us from the 
depths in which they are buried, and telling us 
to beware that we sail not upon the course 
where they have found peril and destruction. 

To carry out the simile, I would call upon 
you who are quietly sleeping in the hold, to 
wake from your slumbers, to look out and see, 
the wreck of governments which have started 
before us on the tide of time, lying around in 
warning profusion. And arc we so mad, so 
stupid, so blind to the past and heedless of the 
present and the future, as to think we can go 
on and find safety and peace where all that have 
gone before us have found peril and destruc- 
tion? 

Let me ask you, therefore, to give this mat- 
ter your personal attention. We are told that 
" Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." 
Wake up and use this vigilance. Every day 
is big with events. We are writing our histo- 
ry. We are impressing with footsteps as indel- 
ible as any of the imprints of Time that little 
space that we occupy between the eternities of 
the past and future. We are working out to- 
day the great problem whether man is capable 
oi self-government. We are to solve for our- 
selves and for those after us the great question 
whether, on the whole, liberty be desirable, or 
whether it shall degenerate into licentiousness, 
and our free institutions shall but jemove those 



™, 



restraints which have checked man frona be- 
coming the victim of his lower passions. When 
the pilgrim of future ages and other lands shal 
visit the places now vocal with our sounds, 
shall he visit with an interest fresh and lively 
the perennial springs of Liberty, or shall he 
only wander by the monuments of a Liberty 
that is dead, of a patriotism that has departed ? 

Let me then commend this subject to your 
earnest and individual attention. I do not speak 
to parties ; I am done with them ; but I will 
speak to men and women. Go to your party 
leaders, and they will give you a different les- 
son. They will teach you to save the party and 
let the party save the country. That is it. Par- 
ty first, and country afterwards. I tell you, 
friends, let parties take care of themselves ; let 
the dead past bury the past, but let the living 
see to it that the inheritance they have received 
as the price of their fathers' blood be not 
wrenched from their coward hands. 

Oh, let Massachusetts be true I Where will 
she be in the greatest contest that ever States or 
Nations were invited to ? Will she be where 
your fathers were in the earlier and better days 
of your history, in the front ranks, or will she 
be lagging behind and leave this great contest to 
other hands ? I hope that the fair fame of the 
Commonwealth, world-wide as it is, will be safe 
in the hands of this generation. I trust that the 
spirit of Faneuil Hall, of Bunker Hill, of Lex- 
ington, and of Concord,, will be imparted to us, 
so that he who shall write of the present shall 
say it was worthy of the past, and a bright fore- 
taste of a glorious future. 

I leave the subject with you, my friends. I owe 
an apology for the incoherent manner in which 
I have spoken, but I have endeavored, not to make 
a speech, but to throw out my heart before you. 
I know I have done it, in a manner unworthy 
of the subject, but Heave it with you. I ask 
you, one and all, to take it home and resolve 
that whatever may betide the country, whether 
weal or woe be our destiny, so far as you indi 
vidually are concerned, you will do your du 
Duty alone is yours ; events are God's, 
dark stain cannot be wiped out — if th 
of the plague cannot be stayed — if th 
the victim must still fill the ears c 
High, and the Almighty shall at last 
arouse he surely will, may each anr 
of you be enabled, in that day 
retribution, to appeal to your Mak( 
witness, that you at least never 
this wrong. 

After the cheering at the c' 
Mr. Stanton moved the follow 
which was adopted with proloi 

Resolved, That the thanks t 

presented to Mr. Hale for the — „ — 

quent exposition which he he 
lations to slavery, and ihe 
thereupon. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



8 



Nomination lor the Presidency. 

MR. HALE'S ACCEPTANCE. 

We give the following interesting correspon- 
dence from the Cincinnati Herald. Mr. Hale's 
letter is all that we expected — full, clear and 
independet.t. With such a representative of our 
principles, we can labor on with renewed en- 
ergy. 

" Cincinnati, Nov. 5, 1S47. 

" Dear Sir : — In discharge of a duty devolv- 
ing upon me by a Resolution of the National 
Liberty Convention, (held at Buffalo, N. Y. on 
the 20th and 21st of October last,) I have the 
honor to inform you that you were nominated 
by that Convention as the candidate of the Lib- 
erty party for Pre.sident of the United States at 
the Presidential election to be held in 1848. 

" With assurance of my personal regard, I 
remain, very respectfully, yours, 

Samuel Lewis. 

" Hon. J. P. Hale:' 

Washingto.v, Jan. 1, 1S48. 
v.-SiR ; — Yours, of the first of November, notify- 
ing me that the Convention holden at Buffalo, 
on the 20th and 21st of October last, had pre- 
sented my name to the people of the United 
States as a candidate for the office of President 
of the United States, is before me. 

It is due to candor to say, that while I ap- 
preciate, in its fullest extent, the favorable esti- 
mation of myself, by the members of that Con- 
vention, indicated by the nomination, were I to 
consult my own wishes, I should peremptorily 
decline it. Deference, however, to the opin- 
ion of those friends who have sustained me 
by their counsel and support, under circum- 
stances and at times well calculated to test the 
ardor of their zeal, and sincerity of their profes- 
sion, has induced a different determination, and I 
therefore accept the offer, and con.sent that my 
name may be thus used in connection with that 
office. 

In announcing to you, sir, as the official organ 
of that body, this result to which I have come, 
allow me to add, that, as that Convention, be- 
fore its adjournment, made provision lor the as- 
sembling of another of a similar character 
should unforeseen contingencies and emergen- 
cies render such a step proper, nothing would 
be more grateful to my own leelings than to find 
the good and true of every party, forgetful of 
y^Xly differences which have heretofore 
no "^i^t.^j^^^^^ uniting together in one strenu6us 
derstand ggtic effort to redeem the Government 
because iited States from the reproach to which 
try from \ justly subject, for its support of hu- 
ry, and the present unjust and aggres- 
a warupc^ ^^^ ^^ wantonly commenced, and is 
patriots ol ^jy prosecuting for its extension and 
ty leading 

hostile to Yi. ^"<^^ ^ movement shall be made in 
, , 1 \d earnest purpose, I shall be most 
credand deai. consent of those friends who have 
triots, as long ,e before the people, to enrol my- 
ing place in t'e humblest privates in the hosts 

those distinguis';'"^'''' «"<=^ ^ b^""^'/ ^ ^"^ "°^ 
? ^ .it such a movement may yet be 
freedom and of j 

r iif. the Britishes expected of an individual 

the yp as traito; nomination for an important 

u^ion ~ <y . ^[jj .>ow remote the chances ol his 

-^^ ' ' give some exposition of the 

dvocate 

\ 



principles he e: 

lie policy by w 001 382 155 ^ 

In accordancv- ..mi oum a ou^puseu e-xi>ecir.- 
tion, 1 will cheerfully say to you, Sir, that I co- 
incide with the principles of the resolutions 
adopted by the Convention which made the 
nomination. 

It has been suggested to me, and indeed I havr 
private letters to the same effect, that doubt,- 
have been expressed to some extent, and pei- 
haps much more generally entertained than ox- 
pressed, whether I really and truly am a " Lil- 
erty party man and belong to the Liberty party.' 
and that it is expected of me, that in this com- 
munication I should clear up and solve tho.x; 
doubts. 

To do this, it is necessary definitely to under- 
stand what is meant by the question. If by li. 
it be intended to ask whether I am ready to co- 
operate with those who by independent, organ- 
ized and individual action, are striving to carry 
out certain principles, such as those embodied 
in the resolutions of the Buffalo Convention, who 
desire to withdraw from the institution of slave- 
ry that support which it unconstitutionally re- 
ceives from the General Government, and seek 
its termination by federal action where it exists 
under federal jurisdiction, and State action, 
where it exists under State authority, so that oui 
Declaration of Independence shall be something 
more than a rhetorical flourish, and the pream- 
ble of the United States Constitution, which de- 
clares, among other things, that it was ordained 
to " secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity" no longer be a cruel mockery, 
then do I belong to such a party. But if it be 
supposed or intended that there is to be any 
magical influence in the name of " party," .so 
that by joining it I thereby subject my pubti'' 
conduct to the supervision or direction of it- 
officers or committees, then I say, most emphat- 
ically. I do not belong to any such party. 

I have been once Ibrmally and solemnly read 
out of the Democratic party, who make such 
high professions of regard for human rights, by 
a State Convention, in New Hampshire, ami 
regularly excommunicated for no reason, except 
a refusal to vote for a measure " calculated and 
designed" by the open declaration of its friends, 
" to uphold the interests of Slavery, extend its 
influence, and secure its permanent ascendancy,"' 
and I am not anxious to place myself speedily in 
a situation in reference to any other party, when 
any of its members may fancy they have the 
moral right to repeat the experiment upon me, 
for any cause, real or fancied. 
. Besides, to my mind the great evil of the pre>- 
ent day, and of our own country, eminently !.■> 
this universal disposition to merge the responsi- 
bilities of individual character in the irresponsi- 
bility of a party. Were it not for this, we couhl 
have a permanent and honorable peace with 
Mexico in less than three months ; but in their 
blind partizan devotion, men forget that there 
is a God higher than the party, or a rule of mor- 
als other than political expediency. 

It is unnecessary for me farther to enlarge on 
this subject. 

This present session of Congress, with the de- 
velopments which are constantly in progress, 
will afford abundant opportunity for those who 
'"eel any interest in the subject, in addition to 
what I have already spoken and written, to be 
informed of my sentiments on the great practical 
questions of the day. With much respect, larn, 
your friend and fellow citizen, 

Hon. S. Lewis. John P. Hale 



